Most paths are implied, not announced.
We are uninvited but not
unwanted.
But don’t touch anything (or anyone) that you aren’t willing to break. It hurts to be deprived, yet it hurts to desire too.
Meadowdale Beach is a county park just north of Seattle that requires a moderately strenuous hike down (and then back up) through a gulch which cradles Meadowdale Creek. It’s a difficult but picturesque journey that I’ve undertaken more than a few times. Here are some photos from a recent visit.
The creek slowly emerges from the undergrowth as you venture farther and farther down the trail:
The canopy above the trail at one point looks almost like it was built as a sacred space, a quiet stop along a spiritual journey:
The creek pours out onto the beach and into the Puget Sound:
Along with some broken shells and the requisite driftwood I found a late sea creature still fairly well preserved:
And of course there was a plethora of humans and their pets (excitable dogs of course) at play in the sands. It was an enjoyable day all in all. Worth the strain. Like life itself, a gift not received but discovered.
Czeslaw Milosz in one of his last poems quotes Julia Hartwig on the subject of mirrors:
A mirror awaiting the reflection of a human face, so
uncertain, as always, of its image.
He then avails his thoughts on the same subject to the reader:
The mirror awaits a face: mine, hers, his, of us
divided into men and women, old people and children.And all of that is we, that is I in the plural,
always uncertain of my reflection in the mirror’s well,Leaning as a child over the well’s casing
And there, in the deep, a tiny and not quite familiar face.
And it is precisely this uncertainty, of what I am, that connects me
to the next person before the mirror.
To compose a mirror, one must back a pane of glass with some kind of metal, like silver or aluminum. But the term also implies the act of reflecting light. And as both poets above infer, mirrors as humans create them come with the expectation of human faces and bodies within them.
If we define an object by its purpose and not just as the sum of its parts, then do we attempt to impose human need on to reality and redefine the world as if it is a satellite of us? Or is reality truly defined by need? Does the world grow greater and more purposeful as needs emerge and evolve?
I ponder these question from within a hotel room, from a chair I do not own, next to a bed I’ve slept in but never will again. I am here though the greater part of me stays fixed to my home even when my physical presence wanders far away. Perhaps an understanding of life and its meaning will always elude us. Because too many parts of ourselves scatter within it and will never be fully in sync with one another.
We can only see one image
in a mirror. One answer
to one question.
Beyond that moment and that gaze
nothing important or necessary
exists outside its lines.
Light does not entwine with
any other light.
While warmth passes with a touch.
I never considered even as a child imposing myself upon the world, for I defined the world as everything around me. Like a window can seem like a wall, I possessed nothing so much as I flirted with its mechanisms. I fell in love with perspective: the knowledge of the distant.
I will return home eventually. Only death prevents it. The rain will not, though now it keeps me behind glass. The trees jitter underneath it. I am anxious too. Yet it’s not that I am doubtful.
It’s that I know myself too well.
Let go if you must:
Though the fear is as real
as the burning stars
We cannot touch it,
only dream out the ignition
as an embrace.
I’m just wondering why I feel so all alone/
Why I’m a stranger in my own life
–Sheryl Crow, “Everyday is a winding road”.
*
Perhaps I err in giving thought and
should just speak of yes and sorry and perfection.
You say the doors unbar themselves.
Do we speak at all if no one is there to hear us?
We are the mist of each other’s existence
and I want to be water
that runs whether joyous or painful.
If you know me better I will praise you but not reward you.
Strength is shared
or it ruins us all.
There are a lot of good trail systems in the Puget Sound area, and given that we finally had some really good weather after a long, freezing winter, I recently partook of them while snapping a few photos along the way. The first picture I took is of Gilman Boulevard in Issaquah, a quiet town surrounded by some exquisite feats of nature.
I didn’t get any great pics on the nearby trails and missed the opportunity to snap one of a deer that crossed no more than fifteen feet in front of me at one point. (My camera was buried in my back pack by then.) But I got a couple of decent shots.
Afterwards I lounged a bit on the shore of Lake Sammamish, one of the nicer lakes in the area.
Later in the week I spent some time on the Centennial Trail which I didn’t get any good shots of. But did get some good pics in Snohomish, a small town at the end of the trail. Another nice place to visit because in some places it’s like going back to a different era. The bridges there especially evoke a sense of history.
I also got a nice shot of Blackman’s Lake in Snohomish.
Further north in the suburb of Marysville, I had a nice walk along the Ebey Slough which connects with the Qwuloolt Wetlands.
And last but not least, a little treat for those of you who have stuck with this post to the end. A bit of graffiti along side the Snohomish River that cracked me up.
If you can’t read it, it says: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, write it on a wall.” Happy trails!
I’ve never been given information that has made my life worse. What is there to fear in the truth? Do we cling so hard to our ideals that any threat to unmask them as such must be dealt with harshly? I don’t think that I realized until I was well past thirty years of age just how hostile people were to their own lives and who they really are. It took that long to convince me.
Perhaps I will search my entire life
for someone who sees exactly what I see in them
and believes it.
I recently spent a couple of days in Bremerton, WA which is a (relatively) small town on the western shore of the Puget Sound. Most of my time was spent indoors because of rain. However I did manage to get a few photos during the sunlit portions of the trip.
Here is the sunrise over the downtown marina.
And a seabird that pestered me for food at said marina.
The town itself is quaint and has some gorgeous views of the Olympic Mountains.
Bremerton has a rather unique and stirring memorial to the 9/11 attacks.
Finally a couple of nature shots from Ilahee State Park.
I hope to travel around the Puget Sound area more this Spring and Summer. Also I need to get a new camera. These were shot on my phone. Here’s to 2018 being the year of adventure.
